Town Board discusses possible new housing development

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The Town of Estes Park Board of Trustees met with representatives from AmericaWest Housing Solutions of Woodland Park and Prairie Fire Development during their study session prior to the town board meeting on Tuesday night.

AmericaWest proposed a plan to develop a 4 acre parcel of land near Dry Gulch Road and Wildfire Road. AmericaWest is a non-profit organization whose overall mission is to provide affordable workforce housing. They are also one of the companies who submitted a proposal for the Fish Hatchery Property for attainable workforce housing.

“A lot of what we are talking about today is conceptual,” Brian Fleer said, CEO and President of AmericaWest Housing Solutions. “There is a potential partnership that we would like to explore with Crossroads.”

Currently, Crossroads Ministry sits on the corner of Dry Gulch and Wildfire. Fleer believes that a collaborative process would be beneficial for all involved.

“We feel like there is a win-win in this particular example for not only Crossroads, but for AmericaWest and Prairie Fire Development, so we want to be able to advance working with staff, a work program that would get us to a scenario that would allow us to do a project,” Fleer said.

Multiple concept drawings were shown to the board members. All three concept drawings included a different combination of structures. All the concept drawings featured around 60 units.

“The workforce housing issue that you are facing here is not unique to Estes Park,” Kelley Hrabe said, owner of Prairie Fire Development. “Treat it not only as a housing issue, but also as an economic development tool to maximize local participation in the project.”

New building projects give the town an opportunity to boost the economy and offer more affordable options to current and prospective residents. AmericaWest also requested that the land be donated to help the project be feasible.

“We are requesting a donation of the land, but it is a catalyst for a redevelopment scenario for Crossroads, it is a catalyst for us to perfect what you have identified in your housing needs assessment and bringing the investment into Estes relative to creating workforce housing,” Fleer said. “We realize it is a process, we realize also that it has to make sense financially, we also realize that there will be an impact to the neighborhood and in our business we know there are going to be some pitfalls.”

The Town Board decided to move forward in continuing the conversation about a potential housing development near Dry Gulch Road and Wildfire Road.